ourselves would have no objection to a little change of diet.
The number of icebergs increased during the afternoon and night, and with such neighbours it suited us very well to have daylight all through the twenty-four hours, as we now had. The weather could not have been better -- fine and clear, with a light but still favourable wind. At 8 p.m. on January 2 the Antarctic Circle was crossed, and an hour or two later the crow's-nest was able to report the ice-belt ahead. For the time being it did not look like obstructing us to any great extent; the floes were collected in long lines, with broad channels of open water between them. We steered right in. Our position was then long. 176º E. and lat.
66º 30' S. The ice immediately stopped all swell, the vessel's deck again became a stable platform, and after two months' incessant exercise of our sea-legs we could once more move about freely. That was a treat in itself.
At nine in the morning of the next day we had our first opportunity of seal-hunting; a big Weddell seal was observed on a floe right ahead. It took our approach with the utmost calmness, not thinking it worth while to budge an inch until a couple of rifle-bullets had convinced it of the seriousness of the situation.
It then made an attempt to reach the water, but it was too late. Two men were already on the floe, and the valuable spoil was secured. In the course of a quarter of an hour the beast lay on our deck, flayed and cut up by practised hands; this gave us at one stroke at least four hundredweight of dog food, as well as a good many rations for men. We made the same coup three times more in the course of the day, and thus had over a ton of fresh meat and blubber.
It need scarcely be said that there was a great feast on board that day. The dogs did their utmost to avail themselves of the opportunity; they simply ate till their legs would no longer carry them, and we could grant them this gratification with a good conscience. As to ourselves, it may doubtless be taken for granted that we observed some degree of moderation, but dinner was polished off very quickly.
Seal steak had many ardent adherents already, and it very soon gained more. Seal soup, in which our excellent vegetables showed to advantage, was perhaps even more favourably received.
For the first twenty-four hours after we entered the ice it was so loose that we were able to hold our course and keep up our speed for practically the whole time. On the two following days things did not go quite so smoothly; at times the lines of floes were fairly close, and occasionally we had to go round. We did not meet with any considerable obstruction, however; there were always openings
enough to enable us to keep going. In the course of January 6 a change took place, the floes became narrower and the leads broader. By 6 p.m. there was open sea on every side as far as the eye could reach. The day's observations gave our position as lat. 70º S., long. 180º E.
Our passage through the pack had been a four days' pleasure trip, and I have a suspicion that several among us looked back with secret regret to the cruise in smooth water through the ice-floes when the swell of the open Ross Sea gave the Fram another chance of showing her rolling capabilities.
But this last part of the voyage was also to be favoured by fortune. These comparatively little-known waters had no terrors to oppose to us. The weather continued surprisingly fine; it could not have been better on a summer trip in the North Sea. Of icebergs there was practically none; a few quite small floebergs were all we met with in the four days we took to cross Ross Sea.
About midday on January 11 a marked brightening of the southern sky announced that it was not far to the goal we had been struggling to reach for five months. At 2.30 p.m. we came in sight of the Great Ice Barrier. Slowly it rose up out of the sea until we were face to face with it in all its imposing majesty. It is difficult with the help of the pen to give any idea of the impression this mighty wall of ice makes on the observer who is confronted with it for the first time. It is altogether a thing which can hardly be described; but one can understand very well that this wall of 100 feet in height was regarded for a generation as an insuperable obstacle to further southward progress.
We knew that the theory of the Barrier's impregnability had long ago been overthrown; there was an opening to the unknown realm beyond it. This opening
-- the Bay of Whales -- ought to lie, according to the descriptions before us, about a hundred miles to the east of the position in which we were. Our course was altered to true east, and during a cruise of twenty-four hours along the Barrier we had every opportunity of marvelling at this gigantic work of Nature.
It was not without a certain feeling of suspense that we looked forward to our arrival at the harbour we were seeking What state should we find it in? Would it prove impossible to land at all conveniently?
One point after another was passed, but still our anxious eyes were met by nothing but the perpendicular wall. At last, on the afternoon of January 12, the wall opened. This agreed with our expectations; we were now in long. 164º, the
selfsame point where our predecessors had previously found access.
We had before us a great bay, so deep that it was impossible to see the end of it from the crow's-nest; but for the moment there was no chance of getting in. The bay was full of great floes -- sea-ice -- recently broken up. We therefore went on a little farther to the eastward to await developments. Next morning we returned, and after the lapse of a few hours the floes within the bay began to move. One after another they came sailing out: the passage was soon free.
As we steered up the bay, we soon saw clearly that here we had every chance of effecting a landing. All we had to do was to choose the best place.
CHAPTER V
On the Barrier
We had thus arrived on January 14 -- a day earlier than we had reckoned -- at this vast, mysterious, natural phenomenon -- the Barrier. One of the most difficult problems of the expedition was solved -- that of conveying our draught animals in sound condition to the field of operations. We had taken 97 dogs on board at Christiansand; the number had now increased to 116, and practically all of these would be fit to serve in the final march to the South.
The next great problem that confronted us was to find a suitable place on the Barrier for our station. My idea had been to get everything -- equipment and provisions -- conveyed far enough into the Barrier to secure us against the unpleasant possibility of drifting out into the Pacific in case the Barrier should be inclined to calve. I had therefore fixed upon ten miles as a suitable distance from the edge of the Barrier. But even our first impression of the conditions seemed to show that we should be spared a great part of this long and troublesome transport. Along its outer edge the Barrier shows an even, flat surface; but here, inside the bay, the conditions were entirely different. Even from the deck of the Fram we were able to observe great disturbances of the surface in every direction; huge ridges with hollows between them extended on all sides. The greatest elevation lay to the south in the form of a lofty, arched ridge, which we took to be about 500 feet high on the horizon. But it might be assumed that this ridge continued to rise beyond the range of vision.
Our original hypothesis that this bay was due to underlying land seemed, therefore, to be immediately confirmed. It did not take long to moor the vessel to
the fixed ice-foot, which here extended for about a mile and a quarter beyond the edge of the Barrier. Everything had been got ready long before. Bjaaland had put our ski in order, and every man had had his right pairs fitted. Ski-boots had long ago been tried on, time after time, sometimes with one, sometimes with two pairs of stockings. Of course it turned out that the ski-boots were on the small side. To get a bootmaker to make roomy boots is, I believe, an absolute impossibility. However, with two pairs of stockings we could always get along in the neighbourhood of the ship. For longer journeys we had canvas boots, as already mentioned.
Of the remainder of our outfit I need only mention the Alpine ropes, which had also been ready for some time. They were about 30 yards long, and were made of very fine rope, soft as silk, specially suited for use in low temperatures.
After a hurried dinner four of us set out. This first excursion was quite a solemn affair; so much depended on it. The weather was of the very best, calm with brilliant sunshine, and a few light, feathery clouds in the beautiful, pale blue sky.
There was warmth in the air which could be felt, even on this immense ice-field.
Seals were lying along the ice-foot as far as the eye could reach -- great, fat mountains of flesh; food enough to last us and the dogs for years.
The going was ideal; our ski glided easily and pleasantly through the newly fallen loose snow. But none of us was exactly in training after the long five months' sea voyage, so that the pace was not great. After half an hour's march we were already at the first important point -- the connection between the sea-ice and the Barrier. This connection had always haunted our brains. What would it be like? A high, perpendicular face of ice, up which we should have to haul our things laboriously with the help of tackles? Or a great and dangerous fissure, which we should not be able to cross without going a long way round? We naturally expected something of the sort. This mighty and terrible monster would, of course, offer resistance in some form or other.
The mystic Barrier! All accounts without exception, from the days of Ross to the present time, had spoken of this remarkable natural formation with apprehensive awe. It was as though one could always read between the lines the same sentence: "Hush, be quiet! the mystic Barrier!"
One, two, three, and a little jump, and the Barrier was surmounted!
We looked at each other and smiled; probably the same thought was in the minds of all of us. The monster had begun to lose something of its mystery, the terror something of its force; the incomprehensible was becoming quite easy to understand.
Without striking a blow we had entered into our kingdom. The Barrier was at this spot about 20 feet high, and the junction between it and the sea-ice was completely filled up with driven snow, so that the ascent took the form of a little, gentle slope. This spot would certainly offer us no resistance.
Hitherto we had made our advance without a rope. The sea-ice, we knew, would offer no hidden difficulties; but what would be the condition of things beyond the Barrier was another question. And as we all thought it would be better to have the rope on before we fell into a crevasse than afterwards, our further advance was made with a rope between the first two.
We proceeded in an easterly direction up through a little valley formed by
"Mount Nelson" on one side, and "Mount Rönniken" on the other. The reader must not, however, imagine from these imposing names that we were walking between any formidable mountain-ranges. Mounts Nelson and Rönniken were nothing but two old pressure ridges that had been formed in those far-off days when the mighty mass of ice had pushed on with awful force without meeting hindrance or resistance, until at this spot it met a superior power that clove and splintered it, and set a bound to its further advance. It must have been a frightful collision, like the end of a world. But now it was over: peace -- an air of infinite peace lay over it all. Nelson and Rönniken were only two pensioned veterans.
Regarded as pressure ridges they were huge, raising their highest summits over 100 feet in the air. Here in the valley the surface round Nelson was quite filled up, while Rönniken still showed a deep scar -- a fissure or hollow. We approached it cautiously. It was not easy to see how deep it was, and whether it had an invisible connection with Nelson on the other side of the valley. But this was not the case. On a closer examination this deep cleft proved to have a solid, filled-up bottom. Between the ridges the surface was perfectly flat, and offered an excellent site for a dog-camp.
Captain Nilsen and I had worked out a kind of programme of the work to be done, and in this it was decided that the dogs should be brought on to the Barrier as quickly as possible, and there looked after by two men. We chose this place for the purpose. The old pressure ridges told the history of the spot plainly
enough; we had no need to fear any kind of disturbance here. The site had the additional advantage that we could see the ship from it, and would always be in communication with those on board.
